Ramadan

Ee's debut album was originally released in 2000 on the tiny Curry label, and it had no formal distribution — it was sold exclusively from the merch table at Ee's live shows. One EP (Tinyspot) and one full-length album (For 100 We Try Harder) later, Ramadan was reissued on Asian Man in late 2003. The band went through significant personnel changes shortly after Ramadan was recorded, so it's a very different lineup that is heard on this album. The sound is mostly fairly quiet and often based around the sound of acoustic guitars (with the occasional cello). Fans of Red House Painters will have some idea what to expect — Tobin Mori's songs are slow and thoughtful, sometimes depressing, but usually just quiet. Even "Wrong Song" and the relatively aggressive "Square Back," with its splattery electric guitars, manage somehow to sound strangely fragile and inward. (The "Supernova Whale Mix" of "Sutro" sounds quite a bit more muscular, however.) Everything is well worth hearing, and you'll hear more the second time around than the first.